‘Battlefield 1’ (-39%) defends its title for a second week despite the debuts of several new titles.

While both Battlefield 3 & 4 saw second week declines of 54%, Battlefield 1 delivers a strong second week (-39%) to comfortably claim its second crown. For Bethesda’s ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition’ it means a second place debut. Despite not claiming top spot it’s still a hugely successful debut for the Xbox One and PS4 version. It sits second behind 2011’s original in terms of best debut launch weeks in the Elder Scrolls series. ‘Fifa 17’ (-6%) has only a slight slowdown in sales but drops down a place to No3 in its 5th week on chart.

EA make it three titles in the Top 4 this week as ‘Titanfall 2’ lands at No4. The sequel to 2014’s Microsoft exclusive (Xbox One / 360 and PC) can’t match the debut heights of the original, which claimed top spot at launch (as well as 4 subsequent No1 crowns). It does however add both a single player campaign and a PS4 to its list of formats this time round. ‘Farming Simulator 17’ ploughs its way to No5 following its Tuesday release. The series’ popularity continues to grow with sales up almost 54% on PS4 and 32% on Xbox One over Farming Simulator 15. (Farming Simulator 16 was solely for PS Vita in the UK). Bandai Namco’s ‘Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2’ also claims a Top 10 spot at No7 in its debut week. Retailer promotions help ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (+89%) and ‘Forza Horizon 3’ (+11%) deliver positive sales growth at No9 and No10.

A second RPG title in the form of Square Enix’s ‘World of Final Fantasy’ is another debutant this week but lands just outside the Top 10 at No11. ‘Just Dance 2017’ is new at No26 as Ubisoft’s latest release breathes some life into Nintendo formats particularly Wii, which claims a 44% share and Wii U a further 16%. The final new release to claim a Top 40 spot is Telltales’ ‘Minecraft: Story Mode – The Complete Adventure’ at No31. The new edition features every episode and bonus content on the disc since the original ‘Story Mode’ launched almost a year ago.